HELP FOR INDUSTRY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21582, 8 December 1944, Page 7

HELP FOR INDUSTRY

TAX ADJUSTMENTS DEFERRED MAINTENANCE (.p R ) WELLINGTON, Dec. 8. One of the points made by the Minister ol' Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, when moving the second reading of ihe Land and Income Tax Amendment Bill in the House of Rep* resentatives yesterday was that the amount already deposited with the department under the deferred maintenance arrangement was £l,ooo,uuu or so and possibly more. The Minister was answering an Opposition suggestion that the total might be £2,000,000. Describing the features in the short amending bill, the Minister said that a difficulty had arisen in providing exemption from tax in respect of money paid for the benefit of returned servicemen. This w?js not legally included in the definition of a charitable purpose, but the amendment in the bill would widen the definition to include that purpose and -it. was made retrospective, because three such cases had already arisen. The decentralisation of the department necessitated delegating some of the commissioner’s powers to superintendents who would have to be appointed to take charge of the offices in the main centres. There would be little criticism of the bill .itself, but there would be great disappointment that the Government had given no indication of a readjustment of taxation, said Mr. F. W. Doidge (Opp., Tauranga). The Government might have seized the opportunity to indicate its intention to co-operate with industry in coping with the rehabilitation problem. It had been said, declared Mr. Nash, that there was no provision for rehabilitation, but there was a provision in the bill for deferred maintenance and that, in the main, was what had been wanted. The time to talk of reduced taxation was when the war was over and the necessity for war expenditure and rehabilitation no longer existed.